Talking turkey

From thanksgiving turkey to the difference between "bar" and "mitzvah" in LA, and where to find Guinness World Record humous in Israel.

Thanksgiving turkey 521.
(photo credit:Courtesy)

■ FORMER NEW Yorker Esther Klein, like many other Israelis of American
background, couldn’t let Thanksgiving go by without a celebration. Her own
apartment was too small to accommodate all the people she would have wanted to
invite, so she suggested that those of her friends who were not going to any
other Thanksgiving dinner or hosting one themselves get together at the Noya
restaurant in midtown Jerusalem. The upshot was two large tables of friends who
had such a good time in each other’s company that Rena Quint, who had come with
her husband Rabbi Emanuel Quint, suggested that Thanksgiving should not be
reserved for a single day of the year, because no matter how bad any situation
got, there was something to be thankful for every day of the year. Friends
should get together more often, just to give thanks, she said.

■ MOST OF
the youngsters who come from abroad to celebrate their bar/bat mitzvas do so at
the Western Wall or Masada. But some prefer the more intimate environment of a
synagogue. This was the case last Saturday with Sammy Schoen, son of Beth and
Joel Schoen of Los Angeles, who did a sterling job at Hazvi Yisrael Synagogue in
Talbiyeh. The bar-mitzva boy, dressed in suit and tie, amazed the regular
congregants by reading not only the week’s Torah portion, but also the Haftara,
then carrying the large Torah scroll back to the ark after leading a parade
around the men’s section of the congregation – and then leading the whole of the
Musaf service.

In addition to his parents, his proud grandparents Anita
and Lou Schoen and Evelyn and Sy Richman were on hand along with other
relatives. They would have been proud of their boy under any circumstances, but
were even more so after they heard the complimentary remarks of other
congregants.

Rabbi Avigdor Burstein, in delivering the sermon, recalled
that when he had attended a Young Israel service in LA, three quarters of the
male congregants had disappeared at Musaf time. When he asked what had happened,
he’d been told that the bar had been opened. So he understood that in LA there
was a difference between “bar” and “mitzva” – but in the case of Sammy Schoen,
bar mitzva still had a singular meaning.

■ ABU GHOSH is known to
mainstream Israelis first and foremost for its excellent humous. In fact, last
year, it won the Guinness World Record, beating Lebanon in preparing the world’s
largest dish of humous.

Some of the members of the mainstream population
also go to Abu Ghosh to buy furniture or to attend church concerts. Many
residents of the adjacent haredi town of Telz Stone do much of their shopping
there. Religiously observant Jerusalemites know that just before Passover each
year, the chief rabbi sells the capital’s leavened food to a member of the
village’s large and influential Jaber family. People with some knowledge of
immediate pre-state history are aware that the residents of Abu Ghosh sheltered
Stern Group broadcaster Geula Cohen from the British.

Although it is
regarded as an Arab village, the roots of Abu Ghosh’s residents are actually
Circassian. The founder of the village was a man called Ghosh. Mayor Salim Jaber
is very proud that Abu Ghosh is a model of coexistence, with Muslims, Christians
and Jews enjoying friendships, eating with each other and shopping in each
other’s stores.

A new project soon to be established in the village is a
cultural center devoted to the roots of the original settlers. This follows a
recent visit by Jaber and other village dignitaries to Chechnya, where they met
with various government ministers who were eager to strengthen ties with Abu
Ghosh. One of the reasons for this is a shortage of males of marriageable age.
Any male resident of Abu Ghosh who is willing to live in Chechnya and marry a
local girl will receive a house from the government in return, free of charge.
That’s quite an incentive, but it’s doubtful, despite the housing shortage in
Abu Ghosh, that it will lead to any significant exodus.